Topside a look into the future
by Sunsoul
Summary: Mikey at age 46 takes a look back at the last 30 years. Set in the Adventures Universe published by Archie comics way back when.
1. Topside a look into the future

Rating: G {Author's note: I don't own the TMNT or their Master} here's my first written attempt in the fanfic genre, enjoy and respond - this takes place in the Adventures Universe post issue #72, it's what I think may have happened to them all -  
  
NEW YORK: PRESENT DAY, in the TURTLE'S LAIR (the boys are age 16) ~Mike's Musings~  
  
"I wonder what'd be like - y'know. Living topside." Mikey mused. He was sprawled out on the couch and flicking through the limited channels they had on the TV.  
  
"It is very different my son. Very open, I wish very much that you and your brothers could experience it." Splinter replied from his lounger chair, April and the boys had bought him a very nice recliner last Christmas.  
  
"But really, to get a real job, live in a house - or apartment, go to a store like a normal person."  
  
"But it would be very difficult to remain a crime fighter, Michaelangelo, it would not be so easy to slip away from the authorities if you did not have the shelter of the sewers."  
  
"Yeah, I guess even Batman needs the bat cave. I wonder if the X-men are really real. I mean we exist, who's to say there aren't mutated humans too?"  
  
"It is all very possible - you seem preoccupied with this subject my son, is something bothering you?" Splinter leaned forward in his chair to look at his son.  
  
"Well, I was watching the latenight news, and I saw TGRI - I only caught half the story though and it said they were up and running again, doing new experiments. I got Donnie to look up some stuff on it on the internet, but he hasn't found anything again."  
  
"And this makes you think that you want to live topside?"  
  
"Well, I figured if there were more like us we might start up some kinda lobby group - after the talkshow and Dr. Synargo, we'd get alotta sympathy I think." Mike sat up, getting excited about his idea, "Equal rights for mutants! Down with experimentation on animals!" Mike lofted his hands in the air, waving invisible lobbying signs and he chuckled, "Wouldn't that be great Master, equal rights?"  
  
"Indeed my son, indeed, perhaps some day it will be a reality, but I do not see it happening in my lifetime."  
  
"Yeah, who knows, but it happened for our future selves, I wish they woulda told us what happened, but Donnie said something about disrupting the space- time continuum, so I don't think things woulda happened the same if he told us, or something like that."  
  
"What would you do if you lived topside, my son?"  
  
"Make friends, hang out. I think I'd be a chef or something, maybe write some stories too. It would be fun hanging with April and Oyuki and Chi and everyone topside wouldn't it?"  
  
"Indeed, you must keep hoping for this, and some day it may come true, my son." Splinter nodded.  
  
"Yeah." Mike said wistfully, "Some day."  
  
NEW YORK: 30 YEARS LATER, the TURLE'S APARTMENT  
  
~Mike's Reflections~  
  
Splinter had been wrong, he did live to see us living topside, but he was only topside a few years before he died in his sleep. There had been a smile on his face though, so he was content with all life had given him. I, Michaelangelo, was now a successful writer. I wrote action adventure stories and science fiction, and the occasional poetry book. We'd been topside for five years now, and had become a bit of a phenomenon. We'd been brought into the spotlight decades ago on that dumb talkshow, but nobody really saw us again unless we popped up on the news for saving peoples' lives in dark alleys, and 25 years later people had come to show us appreciation, they actually thanked us! It was so strange having people shyly come up and throw their arms around us whenever we stepped outside. Don blushed a lot, and Leo would humbly return their thanks, Raph winked at the hot chicks and I did a whole lotta loud thanks and hugs. It was so great.  
  
We almost became a mini mafia, people would bring Leo gifts and ask them to watch over their homes or shops, but Leo would just say to them, "We favor no individual residences or businesses, we respond to any cry for help, anywhere in this vast city - and don't forget there is always the local police" Needless to say, Leo became a spokesman for the NYPD, he was really into the community service stuff, he helped set up neighborhood watches, taught self defense and did a whole bunch of stuff, and still had time to be our fearless leader.  
  
We still did our nightly patrols, we did it in shifts though - Don and Leo did 11 PM to 3 AM, and me and Raph did 3 AM to 6 AM, we had to accommodate Raph's job as a bouncer, which he did splendidly, 'cause no one wanted to tick off the big turtle dude standing by the door. He was a man in demand and was very well paid. Don was the one who really took off in the dollars area. All his tinkering in seclusion really paid off and a number of his inventions were patented and sold worldwide. Don had the megabucks, so he paid most of the bills and didn't mind one bit, because he was raking in the money without even doing anything at the time. He mostly added to his book and movie collection (all educational) in his spare time and watched the Discovery channel on our freaking huge flatscreen TV - which was Raph's contribution. My contribution was the money I made off my books and my culinary skills and Leo's contribution was raising our PR because of all his volunteer work. Leo's latest project was to start up a dojo in partnership with April and Chu's eldest son Daniel - he was 25 and a black belt in a few different fighting styles, Nijitsu being his most prominent. His weapon of choice (to Uncle Leo's delight) were Katanas, but he'd been taught a little of everything by each of us. April and Chu had two other kids as well, Emi - who was 22 and Shan, who was 18 and had just graduated high school. April and Chu had recently been teasing him about putting in a hot tub as soon as he left for University in Toronto.  
  
Oyuki was married with kids too, her oldest was 16 and she'd named him after me: Michael. Her husband Derek never understood it until he met me and nearly passed out from shock. I tease Derek about that to this day. They also had 12 and 13 year old daughters who were kinda terrors, Kira and Molly were little glam girls, when they were little they had always chased my cats around and pulled their tails. but they were a little more grown up now, just a little.  
  
Oh, here's a big surprise, Raph has a girl friend - blond, buxom, and ditzy, she was a waitress at The Drain - the bar he bounced at. But hey she liked him, he liked her and they worked well together, she had a mouth like a sewer and he once lived in one - when I told him that once he decked me good, but it was worth the laugh my brothers had over it. Leo - being our fearless leader had no time for women, although they were always fainting at his feet because of his chivalrous ways. Donnie spent too much time home alone devouring textbooks and formulae to think about girls, and me. well, I did like this one girl, but I really don't think she likes me. She's a petite girl with short brown hair and huge green eyes, she works at the library and I kinda don't think I'm her type, y'know the type that's a huge green turtle on steroids. Ya, its not gonna happen anytime soon. I really never though that humans would accept us on that level - the romantic level, but I guess because it happened to Raph it proves that looks are only skin deep, people in this time are a little more choosy about their spouses, divorce rates went down and the average age of marriage turned to 30 - people were taking longer to really get to know the people they married and looks weren't the top thing on their list. Personality and individuality was the thing that really got people nowadays, race and physical perfection didn't really matter anymore. I thought this was great! It seemed that religion really went nuts in the past few decades though, especially after we surfaced. Some religions included stuff like animal spirits, so those religions really took off, some Christian denominations died out though because they couldn't explain us. It kinda made me sad, because I love diversity and all these religions were so unique and interesting. Luckily we hadn't hit the high side of the global warming yet, although it was becoming more and more apparent that the ice caps would melt. For a while Don tried all these different formulae to figure out the rate at which the ice caps were melting, then he went through a moral dilemma of whether he should try to stop the global warming, then he wanted to try and contact Future Don and ask him if that would upset the space time continuum, then he wondered how soon he should start working on the time slip generator. yeah, Donnie went a little nuts for a few months there, then Leo had a nice long talk with him and Don relaxed for awhile. I still wonder what Leo said.  
  
I think our worst day was when Naga showed up at our door. Raph was the one to answer the door even, and his face just dropped when he saw Naga there. It had been over 15 years since we had last seen him, and he was now 30 something, his fur had started to get silver streaks in it, and it was apparent that he had aged, we on the other hand, didn't look a day older except for a few more battle scars. The bad thing was that Raph was finally over Ninjara. Finally. He had struggled with his feeling for her for 6-8 years (I say 6-8 because Raph doesn't talk about his feelings, so we had no clue what was going on inside his head) but he was finally over her, he was normal potty-mouthed, gruff Raph - there was no more desolation and smoldering hatred in his eyes, he was back to normal, then Naga walks in. We were glad to see him - although we didn't really know him, only Raph did, so we welcomed him in and talked with him and everything, but then Raph had to go and ask about Ninjara. Naga said she was well; then Raph asked how she really was and Naga said she was sick, and it was bad, bad enough that she had sent Naga to find Raph because she had to tell him something. So Raph hopped the first flight to Japan, but all he came back with was a note. I guess she'd died even before Naga had finally found Raph, but she had enough sense to write down what she needed to. The note said she still loved him, she had married another and had kids and all, but she had been told by Future Raph to give his younger self a second chance, and she didn't realize until she was sick that it was Raphael that she really loved. Raph was devastated for years again until he met this blond girl that he's seeing now and I still dunno how she managed to get him out of his shell (figuratively, not literally), but she's been good for him, because he's being Raph again, and as much of a curmudgeon that he is, we prefer him that way.  
  
So that is how the cookie crumbles: Leo's got his public service-volunteer- dojo stuff, Donnie has a fortune in inventions, Raph has a girlfriend, and I've got my cats and my novel writing - and oh, I'm coming out with a cook book this fall. 


	2. Ascension

Here I'm breaking down Mike's reverie about the past 30 years, I suppose you can look at this as Mike's journal, or autobiography. Warning: I expect there to be continuity errors, so just ignore them unless they're really big. This stuff still coming straight out my imagination, except for the few references to the comic storyline -  
  
~The Ascension~  
  
It had been 25 years since we'd been on TV. 25 years since I was blinded. 25 years of Master Splinter, my brothers and I. 25 more years of defending this massive city - and finally we lived in it, not under it. People had definitely gotten more corrupt; it is human nature to do evil things. It even says so somewhere in the Bible I think, doesn't mention turtle nature, but I guess we still made it onto Noah's Ark, so we were one of the good ones I guess. People turned to evil ways again though, and there is no way to stop it it seems. My brothers and I fight the bad guys, and then they are put in jail, psychoanalyzed and reformed and spend the rest of their natural life behind bars. It doesn't matter how many of these bad guys we put away there are always new ones popping up - killers, rapists, child molesters, kidnappers, extortionists, robbers, thieves, thugs, liars . I could go on, but you get the picture I think. Everyone always wants to think that the future holds a brighter promise, and it does but only if people are willing to do something about it. My brothers and I have been doing something about it for over 25 years now. Donnie even gets us to write letters to the President and Amnesty International and all that sort of stuff, I enjoy doing it, because like my brothers, I hate injustice. We haven't gotten soft in our old age, we've just found new ways to fight crime, and we're doing it on an international scale - we don't just hop in a jet and break up a war in some other country - well, sometimes we end up in the middle of one when we're traveling - like Jerusalem. but anyways, we still fight fights the good ol' fashioned way too, beat them up, tie them up, and drop them on the NYPD's front step. Don has even gotten into packaging up the evidence - he watched a little too much CSI, I think.  
  
We managed to get a bit of fame from our little 'appearance' on that talk show - Inside Affair, I think that is what it was called. April and Oyuki sure stirred things up there, she got a lot of job offers after that, and a nasty phone call from her ex-boss, the one that fired her, he was furious that she didn't bring a story that big to him! Life was interesting after that talk show, we ended up rescuing a lot of kids that had run away from home to search the sewers for us, they'd end up getting stuck in flooded pipes and fall down shafts and stuff, it is dangerous in the sewers, I don't know how Splinter managed to keep us from getting killed, but we grew up in these sewers, topside kids didn't have a clue what they were getting themselves into. Once the cops finally knew who and what we were they tried shoving all kind of weapon violations down our throats - they didn't really have a mailing address for the tickets and sepinas though, so they were outta luck. When we first started living above ground though, we got all sorts of tickets in the mail - they were all contested and thrown out though, we were the Turtles, we fought crime, and once the NYPD figured that we were on their side, they shut up about it and looked the other way as long as we kept the peace.  
  
Living above ground was so freeing, I could buy a pizza, but I didn't have to worry about covering up - unless I wanted to. That was another thing the authorities had trouble with, naked turtles, so we got a few tickets for public nudity from some very confused rookies, but once they figured out there really wasn't anything naked about us they sheepishly withdrew the charges. The only problem we had now was the paparazzi, it was worse than J Lo and Ben trying to go out for dinner because we were so darned easy to spot! The tabloids went nuts, we were aliens, we were the love children of a nuclear blast survivor and a sea turtle, we were the prehistoric missing link between the evolution of animals to people, we were time travelers from a distant future where people interbred with animals, we were a government experiment gone wrong. it was kinda funny, but kinda annoying at the same time. Some people would run away from us, others would run to us and ask for autographs, and like I mentioned before some people treated up like a mafia. Children were always an issue, little boys thought we were the coolest thing since bee bee guns, but little girls usually were afraid of us and would hide behind their mothers when they saw us coming.  
  
I was 41 and finally living above ground. Master Splinter was very elderly at this point, which was part of the reason we moved above ground, his health was rapidly declining - he was having respiratory problems, and his eyesight was going, but he was still the same old sensei, full of unending wisdom. The fresh air did him some good, and he seemed even more cheerful to be above ground. He went to the park a lot, he did regular things like any other old man and most of them were too blind themselves to notice they were chatting with a giant rat. April helped us find a house and introduced us to things like paying bills and lawn mowing; it was all a strange new concept to us. Our first place was a real dive, a thirty year old house in the 'burbs; but it only took Donny a few months to get on his feet and start producing all his creations, in the meantime the rest of us fixed up the place. Raph landed himself the bouncer job, and I had started to look for a publisher - I'd been writing stuff for years, it was just hard to find a publisher when I wasn't able to ever meet them, now I could and did. Leo was mainly concerned with taking care of Master Splinter; he needed a little help to get around seeing as his eyesight was going. Raph even bought an old car, Donny fixed him up with some manuals, and he and I fixed it up. For a while it felt like we were still teenagers - like we had moved out on our own, gotten our first jobs and our first car, but we were 41. We don't age like humans though, my skin still felt as smooth as it did two decades ago, my muscles were bigger and stronger, but there was absolutely no deterioration in my muscular or skeletal system. I noticed I started to get heartburn a lot, it must have been all those years of pizza and pop, so I had to seriously change my diet - but I still grab a slice or two every now and again. I was still in the peak of my youth, turtles were supposed to live over 400 years, so I figured I had awhile. Splinter on the other hand was only with us for two years after we moved above ground. He died in his sleep, peacefully. We took him home to Japan to bury him. It was almost a televised event, but we refused to let the cameras in. A lot of crying happened. April and Oyuki came with their families (who had known us as long as they'd been around April and Oyuki), Tattoo came, Candy came, even Kid Terra came, he was in his sixties by then, while April was around fifty and Oyuki was a year younger than us. It was a sad day, a sad year, we felt a little lost without our sensei, but soon enough Leo stepped up and really became out leader. Poor Leo, he was the closest with Master Splinter, and he had to put away his feelings and be leader. Not that he had much leading to do, we were able to relax more now that we were above ground, we didn't have to be on guard against everyone, only against the bad guys. The only one Leo really had to lead was Daniel - April and Chu's son, he was 22 when Splinter died, and Splinter had been his teacher of wisdom while Leo taught him technique. Emi, Shan and Michael - he was Oyuki's - were also under Leo's tutelage, but Daniel was the real pro star, he'd gone to competitions and won tons of prizes, and like I said, he'd mastered a few different styles and techniques. Emi was more of an Indie-rock queen, she played guitar and drums, and was in a band - her brother Shan played bass for her and there were a few other kids that backed them up in singing and playing. They were great, but they had changed the band name a few times and they were starting to die off, as Emi's friends were getting into the so-called 'real world' they weren't high school students anymore, and they had 'real' responsibilities. Michael was a real bright kid, he was always asking Don about stuff, and they spent a lot of time working on things together, Michael's dad was like that too, not so much an intellectual, but he could fix almost anything you put in his hands, so Michael inherited a lot of that. Their girls - Molly and Kira were still developing their adult personalities, after watching all these kids grown up I had come to realize that somewhere right around the age of twelve was where kids started to be the way they would be for the rest of their lives. And Molly and Kira were just coming up to that age, so we were going to give them a few years before we offered to train them in ninjitsu, Oyuki thought that even twelve was too young to start training, but she was just being an overprotective mother, she knew we wouldn't put the kids in danger, and besides all the other kids had jumped at the chance of learning ninjitsu from their 'uncles' when they were that age. We had trained since we mutated, but these kids didn't have to fight for survival, they had to fight for exercise.  
  
I realized we had come a long way in 41 years. We were regular citizens that bought our groceries at the neighborhood grocery store, we went to movies, neighborhood pubs, we rented videos, and we were just like normal people, only a little greener. 


End file.
